All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

286 All About Inventions Colonel Drake had achieved what had hitherto been believed impossible—a belief which had become strengthened from the abortive results attending two years’ diligent labour upon the part of a now defunct well-organised company. The news that oil could be won from the earth in the manner of water circulated through the country like wild-fire, creating wide- spread comment and astonishment. The inevitable happened. Gold has precipitated wild rushes and booms at intervals throughout the world. But now a new treasure-house of Nature had been unlocked. The oil boom broke out. The excited members of the community, ever ready to experience a new thrill in the race for wealth, rushed to Penn- sylvania. The little valley in which Drake had scored such a huge success was overrun by an excited crowd. The land was claimed, parcelled out, and fenced off by prospectors. The forest vanished, the slashing of axe and the whirring of saw resounding throughout the whole twenty-four hours, to clear sites ready to receive reproductions of the strange building which Drake had raised over the first oil-well. The chugging of drills was heard the livelong day and night, and it seemed as if Mother Earth must become honey- combed with pipes for miles around. The valley, which throughout the centuries had been nameless, was now appropriately christened. Oil had been found within its confines, and it forth- with became known far and wide as Oil Creek. Within a few months the unbroken stretch of picturesque forest was transformed into a sordid, ill-kempt, never- ending stretch of gaunt towers and derricks. While some had bought land in which to seek for oil, others